About this Site

Purpose of this Blog is to become a tool and a place where artist that collect and paint flat figures can find interesting links and news about flats, painting techniques, history and various related articles.English speaking related sites are very few but hopefully this blog will provide the collector and the painter with interesting and valuable information about the Art of the Flat Figure and everything related to it.
During the next days I will post any related info I have collected for a long time about various aspects of Flats. Techniques, photos, links, historic articles, anything that is related. Wherever possible I will including the author of the original article. I apologise if sometimes the author's name is not included. It's not intentional but it is lost through time.

Wednesday 27 June 2007

Painting Gold Lace

Painting Gold Lace by Matt Springer

Here is some info on how I paint gold lace without using metallic paint. In this case, I've used the technique on this 75mm figure from Pegaso Miniatures. Unless mentioned, all colors are Vallejo Model Colors.

I start with a base coat of Burnt Umber on all the gold lace areas. As with all acrylics, I apply the base in several thin coats to assure good coverage and also to prevent the loss of sculpted detail that thick coats of paint can hide.
Once the base coat is dry, I mix a little Yellow Ochre into Burnt Umber and with a good detail brush (W&N Series 7 Red Sable) I apply the paint in small lines across each section leaving some of the base to show through. Once this dries, I do the same with more Yellow Ochre added to the Brown Umber and add more small lines in only in smaller areas than before that are more directly exposed to light. Next, the same is done with pure Yellow Ochre and then yet again with Yellow Ochre plus Golden Yellow. Final highest highlights are pure Golden Yellow. Once done, I applied a glaze or a wash of burnt umber and a bit of yellow ochre to unify and bring all the tones together. The key is to leave some areas with little highlights and have others with lots of highlight to create large jumps in contrast from one lightening stage to the next. This helps create the illusion of reflectivity associated with gold lace without using metallic paint.








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